Assessment of Planetary Boundary Layer parametrizations and urban heat island comparison: Impacts and implications for tracer transport
| dc.contributor.author | Lopez-Coto, Israel | |
| dc.contributor.author | Hicks, Micheal | |
| dc.contributor.author | Karion, Anna | |
| dc.contributor.author | Sakai, Ricardo K. | |
| dc.contributor.author | Prasad, Kuldeep | |
| dc.contributor.author | Whetstone, James | |
| dc.date.accessioned | 2020-09-25T17:21:12Z | |
| dc.date.available | 2020-09-25T17:21:12Z | |
| dc.date.issued | 2020-08-27 | |
| dc.description.abstract | Accurate simulation of planetary boundary layer height (PBLH) is key to greenhouse gas emission estimation, air quality prediction and weather forecasting. This manuscript describes an extensive performance assessment of several Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model configurations where novel observations from ceilometers, surface stations and a flux tower were used to study their ability to reproduce planetary boundary layer heights (PBLH) and the impact that the urban heat island (UHI) has on the modeled PBLHs in the greater Washington, D.C. area. In addition, CO₂ measurements at two urban towers were compared to tracer transport simulations. The ensemble of models used 4 PBL parameterizations, 2 sources of initial and boundary conditions and 1 configuration including the building energy parameterization (BEP) urban canopy model. Results have shown low biases over the whole domain and period for wind speed, wind direction and temperature with no drastic differences between meteorological drivers. We find that PBLH errors are mostly positively correlated with sensible heat flux errors, and that modeled positive UHI intensities are associated with deeper modeled PBLs over the urban areas. In addition, we find that modeled PBLHs are typically biased low during nighttime for most of the configurations with the exception of those using the MYNN parametrization and that these biases directly translate to tracer biases. Overall, the configurations using MYNN scheme performed the best, reproducing the PBLH and CO₂ molar fractions reasonably well during all hours, thus opening the door to future nighttime inverse modeling. | en_US |
| dc.description.sponsorship | We acknowledge the NWS Sterling Field Support Center (SFSC) and the Howard University Beltsville Research center for providing the ceilometer data used in this work. Funding was provided by the NIST Greenhouse Gas Measurements program. Certain commercial equipment, instruments, or materials are identified in this paper in order to specify the experimental procedure adequately. Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply that the materials or equipment identified are necessarily the best available for the purpose. | en_US |
| dc.description.uri | https://journals.ametsoc.org/jamc/article/doi/10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0168.1/354363/Assessment-of-Planetary-Boundary-Layer | en_US |
| dc.format.extent | 50 pages | en_US |
| dc.genre | journal articles | en_US |
| dc.identifier | doi:10.13016/m2jdea-badi | |
| dc.identifier.citation | Lopez-Coto, I., M. Hicks, A. Karion, R. K. Sakai, B. Demoz, K. Prasad, and J. Whetstone, Assessment of Planetary Boundary Layer parametrizations and urban heat island comparison: Impacts and implications for tracer transport. J. Appl. Meteor. Climatol., doi: https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0168.1. | en_US |
| dc.identifier.uri | https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-19-0168.1 | |
| dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/11603/19717 | |
| dc.language.iso | en_US | en_US |
| dc.publisher | American Meteorological Society (AMS) | en_US |
| dc.relation.isAvailableAt | The University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Physics Department Collection | |
| dc.relation.ispartof | UMBC Faculty Collection | |
| dc.rights | This item is likely protected under Title 17 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Unless on a Creative Commons license, for uses protected by Copyright Law, contact the copyright holder or the author. | |
| dc.rights | Public Domain Mark 1.0 | * |
| dc.rights | This work was written as part of one of the author's official duties as an Employee of the United States Government and is therefore a work of the United States Government. In accordance with 17 U.S.C. 105, no copyright protection is available for such works under U.S. Law | |
| dc.rights.uri | http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/ | * |
| dc.title | Assessment of Planetary Boundary Layer parametrizations and urban heat island comparison: Impacts and implications for tracer transport | en_US |
| dc.type | Text | en_US |